I would be shocked if this zoom sounded better
easy way to find out, take the comp
i find the two samples very difficult to discern. ABX confirms this. I thought one seemed to sound slightly brighter on the vocals, but my ABX guesses were only 4 out of 8 (on decent iems - ety ER4 fed by a benchmark DAC with its HPA2 headphone amp). might be different on monitors but it seems my impression is right there with most other people - there is really no clear winner
while SD does have a reputation for HQ pro gear, and zoom historically has served the lower end of the market, at the end of the day the zoom F series and the mixpre series are both designed for the the pro-sumer market. Its kinda irrelevant that 'zooms best' sounds as good as 'sound devices worst', when youre in the market to spend $400-$800 on an all-in-one multichannel recorder, those are what you are working with.
What i would be more interested in, is the following:
-does the zoom F6 input *really* sound the same as the older F series models?
-apart from the dual-ADCs, the F8n block diagram clearly shows analog trim before the ADC
-are we even sure that the same ADC chips are used in both designs?
-Zoom support has told me that
"Since the device is constantly switching converters depending on the input level, low level signals are always recording with the best noise level possible on the device, which is comparable to a typical 24 bit recorder/preamp operating at the most optimal setting possible (which is often difficult to predict). " -does this mean that in many instances the older F-series is *not* offering the ideal signal level to its ADC to get the best performance?
conversely, on the mixpre side
-Sound Devices tout their 'Kashmir' preamps (and specifically state on the mix pre that the extra 'aux' channels do not employ the kashmir pres.
-Paul has told us that there is no user-adjustable analog gain on the mixpre-II, the trim is post-ADC
-Thus, is the kashmir preamp really an analog pre at all? or does all the heavy lifting get done in the digital realm?
-and if the gain is DSP-based, how does the Kashmir preamp differ from the ones on the aux line?
unfortuantely sound devices doesnt provide block diagrams in their manuals